Music and people hold my life together. I describe experiences, discoveries and insights, often connected with music and with teaching and playing piano. The blog is a way to stay in touch with friends, and may also be food for thought for anyone else, especially people connected with music and the piano/
Musik und Menschen halten mein Leben zusammen. Ich beschreibe Erfahrungen, Entdeckungen und Einsichten, oft in Zusammenhang mit dem Klavierspiel und dem Klavierunterricht.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

„Take
time,“ my friend Raj Bhimani said, when I played the Schubert Sonata for him
yesterday. He knows the piece well, has performed it himself – in fact, it was
that memorable concert when I first fell in love with the composer’s late
sonata in A-major.

„Take
time when you need it, for places where the music wants to expand, for phrases
that take longer to wind down, for places that are technically difficult, for
big leaps. Sometimes, the composer doesn’t want us to get there in time.“

Robbing
time – this is the literal translation for the musical term rubato. „And don’t make it up,“ my
teacher Seymour Bernstein usually adds. He’s been pointing out the same things
as Raj, but somehow, I didn’t get the message. And when I recorded the piece
today during practice, I realized that, instead of slowing down when the music
becomes dramatic I’m speeding up as if I can’t wait to get past the hurdle.

Let’s
face it, I’ve been “spinning in the hamster wheel” since the studio recital in
early February. Teaching continued, and preparing students for the community
recital last Sunday, and registering them for end-of the-year auditions. Those
things require some formalities, but also time for thought and coordination. In
addition to that I had three lecture recitals coming up in March, that needed
to be prepared and practiced.

Three
weeks after the last lecture, this Sunday’s concert is coming up. It wasn’t
planned that way, but the concert venue where we had reserved April 25th
closed in January, and we were fortunate to get April 10th at All
Souls. Life happens…

This
is my first public recital in New York City, and I’ve never performed the
program before: Schubert’s Sonata in A-major D 959 (playing time about 40
minutes) and, together with Devony Smith and Michael Maliachel, two wonderful
soloists from the choir where I sing, Schumann’s song cycle “Myrthen” op 25.
That’s 26 songs, mostly short, not too challenging technically, but it’s still
a lot of music to get into your mind.

At
this point I’m not even thinking of the music I need to learn for choir. MusicaViva’s next concert is coming up on May 1st, and some of the
repertoire for theSunday services until
then is not exactly easy, either.

In
times like that, the three hours I reserve for practicing piano every day fly
by before I know it. On Monday, I spent most of the day practicing, something
like seven hours. It was my first day without appointments in a long time. In
between practice sessions I robbed a little time to do other things that didn’t
really need to be done.

I made
a big pot of soup from the two pounds of carrots I brought home from the
community recital the day before. A well-meaning person brought them in for
snacks afterwards, but the kids went for the chips and cookies. So would I
after a performance, but now thanks to the carrots, I already have lunch for
the week.

I called
a friend and we had a nice long chat. Towards evening the rain finally stopped.
I went for a short walk, and returned refreshed, before going back to the piano
for a last practice session in the evening.

There are many things you can do to get some rubato
into your every day life, for example:

Activities like these are necessary to avoid getting get crushed, while trying to squeeze more and more into less and less time, and in the end, the breathlessness finds its way into the music as well.